People Who Care
by The Goliath Beetle
Summary: One-shot. Cam's POV when Booth's in his coma. No pairings intended. BB if you squint. But that's it, really.


_People Who Care_

**A/N: This is from Cam's POV after Booth's infamous surgery, when he's in a coma. In the waiting room. Don't own Bones yet, sorry. **

I sat there, closest to her, feeling like the furthest away. We were friends, but we weren't too close. I would comfort her if I could, but I didn't know how. Anyway, right now, she looked too upset to want company. I, on the other hand, desperately wanted someone to hold me. I wanted to cry into someone, I wanted to feel that amazing feeling of being loved. Being held. Tonight, I didn't want to be alone.

She sat there, hugging herself, legs tucked neatly beneath her, staring at the floor; not actually acknowledging it. I wiped a stray tear from my eye. This was hard on all of us. It was impossible to imagine that only eight hours ago we'd put a murderer behind bars. It felt like a whole other universe away now. I look at her properly. I doubt I've ever seen her like that. Her face devoid of tear tracks, her skin pale...she didn't look alive.

She obviously needed a friend right now. I'd know. I really needed one. Looking around, I saw Angela asleep on Hodgins' shoulder. The entomologist's head lolled to one side, and he looked like he was having a fitful slumber. Sweets looked three times smaller than he usually did. The hard plastic hospital chair seemed to eat into him, shrinking his sleeping form.

So it was me. I made a quick decision and stood. Going to the coffee machine, I waited as two glasses filled. As I turned around, I absently looked into her eyes. I stifled a gasp. Her eyes, usually empty of emotion, were now brimming with her feelings. I couldn't imagine what was going on in the anthropologist's heart; the eyes had too many passions in them.

So this was Temperance Brennan. A little broken girl.

I went and sat down beside her, my arm outstretched, handing her the Styrofoam coffee cup. She looked up to my face, as though just acknowledging that I exist, before saying, "I'm not hungry, Cam." Her voice was coated with what I thought was pain. "I don't want any coffee."

"Take it," I said firmly, "you've not eaten since lunch." For a second, I thought she was going to scream at me. Instead, she quietly complied. I sat down beside her.

We sat in a silence that was neither awkward nor companionable. It felt more like the silence shared by two people feeling the same—hurt. Upset. Broken.

I don't know when I started praying in my head, but once I started, I couldn't stop my mental promises to God. _Please, God, wake Booth up from the coma and I promise to clean out my cupboard thrice every month and give my old clothes to charity. Please make Booth get up, and I'll run a mile every day before and after work to lose weight. Please wake Booth, I'll become a vegetarian! Please, please, you have to make Booth get up, we need him. We need him! We always have. _

_We've always needed someone like Booth. You can't take him away. You can't. You won't. You won't, will you? Please, God, please. _

It was with a shock that I returned to my senses. A noise had alerted me to something.

I looked at Dr. Brennan to see her crying. I had heard a sniffle, and now I saw the tears that she was so desperately trying to hold off, falling. She made no attempt to wipe them away. She just let them fall where they may, either too tired or too upset to care.

"Temperance?" I squeezed her hand.

She gave me a watery smile. I noticed she hadn't touched the coffee. "You usually call me 'Dr. Brennan'."

I shook my head. "Today, I'm just another person who cares about Booth."

"Why won't they let us see him?" she sounded pleading, like a toddler begging for candy. She already knew the answer to that question, but sometimes, we all need reminding. Even the best of us. I hated being the one having to give her that jolt of cold reality.

"When he's stabilized, we can see him," I told her, trying to stop the stinging in my eyes. Another tear rolled down her cheek. "He'll be fine, I'm telling you," I tried to assure her. That was easier said than done.

"Irrationally..." she said, her voice surprisingly steady, "Irrationally, I'd like to believe you. But statistically—" I cut her off there. The last thing I needed now was someone telling me the odds. Because both she and I knew that they were low. But I was a woman who believed in miracles. I clung on to those threads of hope as a lifeline. And I could see she had completely given up.

"Forget statistics, for a minute, please," I said. She fell quiet immediately. "You care about Booth. Don't you?"

"Of course!" she said, a little louder than I had expected her to answer. She was apparently insulted.

"...Then that's all that matters. I care about Booth. So do Angela, Sweets and Hodgins. So does Parker. So does Caroline Julian. So do all his friends at the FBI...And so do you. That's all that matters. And trust me, Booth knows that." Now I was rambling all kinds of non-sense that was helping me cope. "And Booth is a man who puts the happiness of other people before his. And I'm telling you. He will be fine. If nothing else, then he'll recover just to see us happy."

I finished. I waited for all of this to be shot down by logic and reason of monstrous proportions. But Temperance said the one thing that I never imagined she would.

"Yes." I looked at her properly.

"Excuse me?" I asked before I could control myself.

"Booth puts the happiness of others before his. We'd be upset if he died." Those words stung me. Regardless, I listened to her reasoning. "I am sure Booth knows that we all care for him. He would hate to see us upset. Using that logic, I conclude the same as you do. He will get better, because he wants to see us happy."

I sat in a stunned silence. Then, with a nod, I said, "Told you so," and began staring at the floor.

I don't know how long we sat like that before the doctor came. "Excuse me? Are you with Mr. Seeley Booth?"

Both our heads shot up at the same time. I nodded numbly. Brennan spoke. "Yes. Can we see him?"

The doctor nodded. "Yes, you may see him now."

"Thank you," I said. Then Temperance and I proceeded to wake the others up. The doctor waited patiently for us.

With some relieved, some concerned words exchanged, Angela, Sweets and Hodgins followed the doctor. I wanted to do the same. Badly. But I saw Brennan standing back—lagging behind.

"What?" I asked her gently.

"I..." her voice broke. "I don't know what to expect."

I squeezed her hand again. "Expect to see Booth. Don't expect to see a man in a hospital gown. Expect to see Booth, healthy and happy. See the Booth you want to see. And he'll see you. He'll know you're upset. And he'll wake."

"...Because I'm a person who cares?"

I nodded. "Because we're all people who care."

**A/N: I love reviews! Thanks for reading! **


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